Girls Don’t Fight

GIRLS DON’T FIGHT provocatively explores women’s recent entry into what has long been considered the male domain: the fight rings of sport.

Jessica Rakoczy is a boxer who fought her way off the streets of Hamilton, ON and into the rings of Las Vegas to become the women’s lightweight champion of the world. In contrast to Rakoczy’s gritty world of pro boxing, the doc also presents wrestler Lyndsay Belisle’s quest for gold in Athens as she competes in the first women’s freestyle wrestling competition in Olympic History.

Belisle’s Olympic opportunity is something Rakoczy has been denied. Female boxing is still not included at the Olympics. With no gold medal dream to follow, Rakoczy’s only viable option was to turn pro, presenting a unique set of gender controversies. For a woman to have a profitable career in the media-driven world of boxing, she must be “marketable” and have sex appeal. This often relegates female boxing to being a circus sideshow on men’s boxing cards, a trend that Rakoczy and other true fighters are trying to overcome.

Tracing the evolution of female combatants from the Ancient Greek female wrestler Atalanta to a rebellious female boxing pioneer from the 1950’s, Barbara Buttrick the film combines provocative interview montages set against hilarious women’s etiquette film clips from the 1950’s. Narrated by Canadian actress Sandra Oh (Sideways, Grey’s Anatomy),GIRLS DON’T FIGHT tackles gender issues in violent sport with irony and humour.